Range Rovers in Southern California: An Uncommon Market
Next week, their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of York will make several Los Angeles appearances in which their elegant backdrop will be a ruck of Range Rovers built for moor and motorway. Andrew and Fergie will be polite, patriotic, but not that impressed with the cars. Because mother, Queen Elizabeth, has owned a Range Rover for years. So has brother Charles. And father Philip.
These days, in fact, almost everybody who is somebody just about anywhere rides this British-built estate and station carriage. Pope John Paul. James Paul McCartney. The Duke of Westminster who owns most of Mayfair and the Sultan Qabus bin Said, who owns all of Oman.
And in Southern California--after less than a year of sales--the Range Rover has become the hottest four-wheel-drive vehicle since World War II when Willys-Jeep crushed its first vertebra.
Pronounced Worthy of Its Legends
Playboy and USA Today have noted its status and Esquire is looking into it. The Washingtonian magazine has reported the Range Rover worthy of all its legends. This month, M magazine called it the up-to-date car in Los Angeles for “people trying to maintain a sense of power on the road combined with the feeling that they can escape to the country any minute.”
Jack Nicholson has bought a Range Rover for roving Aspen’s snowy ranges. Michael J. Fox drives to Hollywood openings in his. Timothy Hutton and wife Debra Winger and the new baby go to the store in theirs. So do Doc Severinsen, Tom Cruise, Jimmy Buffet and Jermaine Jackson. Martin Sheen has one on order.
Last month, Malcolm Smith of Riverside drove his Range Rover 8,000 miles in 11 days--and placed fourth in the Paris-Dakar rally.
Last year, 2,586 Range Rovers were sold in the United States, more than 18% purchased by Californians.
“Southern California has a lot of people who have traveled to Europe and who have seen how the vehicle fits that society,” explained Bill Baker, spokesman for the Lanham (Maryland) and Solihull (England) offices of Range Rover. “In Paris, after three Range Rovers were among the top five finishers of the Paris-Dakar, it is the only car to own. In England, where it is the only vehicle in the world to have earned four Royal warrants (chosen to supply the Royal Family) it is the car for checking your stock, attending the shoot, touring your estate.”
Who buys a Range Rover? “Our typical customer has a $200,000-average household income,” Baker said. “He or she is 43.5 years old, owns two homes, two cars and is a professional with an advanced degree . . . or an entrepreneur.”
Why? “All sport-utility and off-road vehicles are stylish now . . . at the tip of that segment is the Range Rover in terms of price, prestige and performance.”
Price: $36,450 with its two factory options (sunroof and leather upholstery) and rising as the dollar dives. Prestige: In addition to the international celebrities above, the Duke of Roxburghe owns a Range Rover and Floors Castle where “Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan” was filmed and where Andrew proposed to Fergie. Performance: Quick and firm enough (at least in Europe where engines aren’t strangled by anti-pollution plumbing) to be owned by former Formula One driving champion Jackie Stewart and rallied by French Formula One driver Patrick Tambay.
But the Range Rover’s ultimate charm, its Southern California owners claim, is its punch and elegance. In first gear, goes the consensus of automotive reviews, it’s a tank that will ford Trabuco Canyon in full flood and then climb a sleeping elephant. In (automatic) fourth gear, it’s a tourer that will tool along at 100 m.p.h. It has room for half a dozen occupants sitting on Connolly leather upholstery. While listening to Vivaldi on the tape deck.
“They’re beautifully ugly,” says Richard Dashutt of Malibu, a co-producer, with guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, for Fleetwood Mac. “Yet ultimately functional which is the ultimate design and ultimately timeless. Like the Zippo lighter.”
Such purity of design has seen a Range Rover on temporary display at the Louvre. Beginning Wednesday, one will be exhibited at the California Museum of Science & Industry as part of a UK/LA ’88 display of British designs (along with Wedgwood, Holland & Holland shotguns, Zandra Rhodes fashions, Heal’s furniture and Wick’s saddles) that will be visited by the Duke and Duchess of York.
Continued Dashutt: “Working with an English group (Fleetwood Mac), I’d heard for years about Range Rover. So I looked into it.” That look ended his ownership of a Toyota Four-Runner and memories of his Porsche and a Ferrari. “I must say that they (Range Rover) are very slow, and passing a truck is a little iffy. But they’re also wonderfully built with lots of character and like all thoroughbred cars, you need to stay on top of them mechanically.”
Dashutt’s vehicle has had electrical problems. Other owners have reported snapped fan belts, hiccups in the fuel injection and a rash of nickel-and-dime . . . er, shilling-and-sixpence problems. Range Rover of North America Inc. acknowledges these gremlins (Said spokesman Baker: “Would that I can tell you that the car is 100% perfect . . . it’s not, although we consider performance perfectly adequate”) but emphasizes its nationwide service program of instant responses and immediate fixes.
‘A Very Special Automobile’
“Despite all this (glitches), I love the things,” Dashutt said. “With a Range Rover, you’re left with a feeling that you’re driving a very special automobile, a luxurious automobile that treats you with kindness, like a gentleman.”
Sired by the 1948 Land Rover designed for farm and battlefields, the second generation, softer-riding Range Rover was introduced in Europe in 1970.
Since then, 160,000 Range Rovers have been produced. But it remains essentially unchanged as a slab-sided, 3.5-liter, 150-horsepower, aluminum-bodied, ladder-chassied mountain goat that has been around since Harold Wilson was prime minister.
Rover’s decision not to build to federal auto safety and pollution requirements kept the Range Rover from export to the United States for 17 years. Until March. When this cushioned tea caddy (now all clean and crash-resistant and armed with three catalytic converters) rolled off boats in Los Angeles and Baltimore as a preordained, prefabricated trend.
Dashutt bought his Range Rover because he enjoys driving in the dirt: “But I have to admit to being a little gun-shy about taking it off-road. I don’t want to beat it up. It’s a perfect urban assault vehicle. But it feels like you’re driving a Jaguar and you just don’t take a Jaguar off-road.”
Jerome Lew, a producer-writer with actor John Ritter’s production company, bought his to handle ski trips to Mammoth: “To say nothing of the fact that I live in Malibu where we get landslides, mudslides and salt air that have destroyed the BMWs and Porsches I’ve owned.”
Richard Mulligan bought one for his Los Angeles antique business. The business continued to grow: “So I now own two Range Rovers.”
To Please a Lady
Doc Severinsen, leader of the “Tonight Show” orchestra, former owner of Lancias, Ferraris and a Ford Bronco, current owner of a Maserati Biturbo, bought a Range Rover to please a lady. Lily. His English bulldog.
“I take Lily everywhere with me,” Severinsen said. “She can see out of the Range Rover, but not the Maserati. So (wife) Emily gets the Maserati, and Lily and I get the Range Rover.”
The celebrity of the Range Rover, and its owners, is worldwide.
There is the Pope John Paul and his twin Popemobiles, one the Mercedes he brought to Los Angeles last year, the other an armored Range Rover. For her Manila motorcades, Philippines President Corazon Aquino chooses a Range Rover. And when Terry Waite, Middle East envoy for the Archbishop of Canterbury, was kidnaped in Beirut last year . . . he was snatched from a Range Rover.
“And (Libyan leader) Moammar Kadafi owns a Range Rover,” Baker said. “But we don’t really care to talk about that.”
